IRA MATH­UR

Sumana Chan­drashekar’s life in Ban­ga­lore, In­dia, has re­volved around Car­nat­ic vo­cal mu­sic.

Car­nat­ic mu­sic is one of the old­est clas­si­cal mu­sic sys­tems in the world, with roots in South In­dia.

It is per­formed main­ly on con­cert stages and in tem­ples, usu­al­ly led by a vo­cal­ist, with in­stru­ments and per­cus­sion ac­com­pa­ny­ing both mu­sic and clas­si­cal dance.

Chan­drashekar be­gan lessons at sev­en, per­formed on stage as a teenag­er, and con­tin­ued her train­ing as an adult un­der se­nior teach­ers, in­clud­ing the pi­o­neer­ing ghatam artist Sukanya Ram­gopal.

Along­side her mu­si­cal ca­reer she earned a Mas­ter’s de­gree in Eco­nom­ics be­fore join­ing the In­dia Foun­da­tion for the Arts. Her work there — trav­el­ling wide­ly, meet­ing mu­si­cians, pot­ters and per­for­mance com­mu­ni­ties — shaped the ques­tions that de­fine her writ­ing: how in­stru­ments are made, and cru­cial­ly how cul­ture is de­fined, where it is placed in the his­to­ry of the arts.

Chan­drashekar’s re­search in­ter­ests grew from this field­work. She ex­am­ined the in­ter­sec­tions of lan­guage, mi­gra­tion, gen­der and mu­sic, doc­u­ment­ing the peo­ple and prac­tices that hold clas­si­cal tra­di­tions to­geth­er. Her book, Song of the Clay Pot: My Jour­ney with the Ghatam (Speak­ing Tiger Books, Au­gust 2025) draws on that back­ground. Her book is an ac­count of the in­stru­ment she had once bare­ly no­ticed, and ex­am­in­ing the so­cial and ma­te­r­i­al world that pro­duces its sound.

The ghatam is one of South In­dia’s old­est per­cus­sion in­stru­ments, go­ing back some 2000 years — an unglazed clay pot fired in vil­lage kilns and shaped by ar­ti­sans who have in­her­it­ed the craft through gen­er­a­tions. Pots from Man­a­madu­rai are es­pe­cial­ly prized.

The in­stru­ment can­not be tuned or re­paired – its sound de­pends en­tire­ly on the clay and the fir­ing. Play­ers strike the base, rim and body, ro­tate the pot for tone, and use the mouth of the pot against the stom­ach to ad­just res­o­nance. In a Car­nat­ic con­cert the vo­cal­ist leads, the vi­o­lin fol­lows and the mri­dan­gam sets the rhyth­mic frame. The ghatam is heard most­ly dur­ing the tani āvar­tanam, the per­cus­sion se­quence at the cen­tre of the per­for­mance.

Chan­drashekar ex­plains why she wrote the book. “I wouldn’t be able to write if I didn’t play, and I wouldn’t be able to play if I didn’t write,” she says.

Writ­ing is part of her rou­tine as a mu­si­cian, a way to track ex­per­i­ments and ques­tions. She al­so sees it as record-keep­ing. She val­ues “mi­cro-sto­ries”: the work of pot­ters, women per­cus­sion­ists and oth­ers whose knowl­edge is es­sen­tial to the mu­sic but rarely ac­knowl­edged. Writ­ing about them, she says, is a po­lit­i­cal act.

Chan­drashekar’s re­search back­ground shapes the re­port­ing. She vis­its pot­ter fam­i­lies and de­scribes the pres­sure they face from ris­ing costs and de­clin­ing de­mand. She notes the qui­et in­equal­i­ties in per­cus­sion, es­pe­cial­ly for women, and the prac­ti­cal bar­ri­ers that shape who ap­pears on stage. These de­tails emerge from every­day en­coun­ters.

The turn­ing point in her mu­si­cal life came in 2008, dur­ing a still sum­mer in Ban­ga­lore.

The pas­sage be­low ap­pears in her book and records the mo­ment:

**EX­TRACT FROM SONG OF THE CLAY POT: MY JOUR­NEY WITH THE GHATAM

By Sumana Chan­drashekar**

Re­pro­duced with ex­clu­sive per­mis­sion by Speak­ing Tiger Books for The Trinidad Guardian

“In those sum­mer months, even to imag­ine the first drops of rain, the ten­der green blos­soms and the gen­tle scent of earth can be rather heady. The wait is like a deep long­ing, a bi­ra­ha. A silent prayer.

I re­mem­ber that warm night in March. The night air was un­usu­al­ly still. I splashed some cold wa­ter on my face and sank in­to the bed.

I must have been asleep for about three hours. Sud­den­ly, I sensed that my fin­gers were mov­ing on my bel­ly. As they moved, I heard the sounds of a pot. The smell of earth had en­gulfed me. I woke up with a start. No rain. No pet­ri­chor. And the night air was warm and still. I rubbed, turned my palms; cracked my knuck­les and sank back in­to my bed. Was it a dream? Every­thing seemed sur­re­al. My whole body was in a state of ex­tra­or­di­nary thrill.

I woke up the next morn­ing still in the af­ter­glow of this dream-like state. As the day pro­gressed, oth­er thoughts and dai­ly rou­tine oblit­er­at­ed this ex­pe­ri­ence.

A few days lat­er the ex­pe­ri­ence re­turned, with some­what the same in­ten­si­ty. The same scent of the earth, the fin­gers mov­ing on my bel­ly, the sounds of a pot. I woke up in­stant­ly, draw­ing my mov­ing fin­gers in­wards in­to my palms, like the wak­er who hur­ries to catch an elu­sive dream. The dream es­caped. The scent of the earth slow­ly fad­ed away. What re­mained was my body in that same in­ex­plic­a­ble state of thrill.

Rou­tine took over once again. I de­cid­ed not to pay any more at­ten­tion to this feel­ing. Af­ter all, why am I hear­ing the sound of a pot? So un­re­al­is­tic. I have not even once had a spe­cial in­ter­est in a clay pot. In con­certs, I have nev­er paid ex­clu­sive at­ten­tion to a gha­ta. So, then what else could this be but mere fleet­ing dreams? I con­vinced my­self.

But they would not stop. Over the next few months, these ex­pe­ri­ences kept com­ing back, now with greater in­ten­si­ty. I was cer­tain that a hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry con­di­tion had gripped me and that I re­quired a psy­chi­a­trist’s help. How­ev­er, the on­ly rea­son I de­cid­ed to ob­serve this for some more time was be­cause these re­peat­ed ex­pe­ri­ences did not ac­tu­al­ly dis­turb me. The rem­nants of the dream felt good. What was it? Was it tru­ly a dream? A se­mi-dream? Or, was I in­side the dream?

By this time, I had been a stu­dent of Car­nat­ic mu­sic for more than twen­ty years. I had start­ed learn­ing Car­nat­ic vo­cal mu­sic when I was sev­en and was now per­form­ing on stage. I de­cid­ed to dis­cuss my dream with my gu­ru Ru­pa Srid­har ma’am with whom I had been study­ing singing for some years.

Ru­pa ma’am is gift­ed with a heal­er’s spir­it, which both her mu­sic and her words car­ry with a lot of grace. If she had not ded­i­cat­ed her­self to mu­sic, she would prob­a­bly have been a much-loved doc­tor; many of her stu­dents ben­e­fit­ed from her home reme­dies and ho­moeopa­thy mix­tures which she al­ways kept handy, not to men­tion her wise coun­sel that boost­ed wilt­ing spir­its. More than any­thing, she is per­cep­tive and em­pa­thet­ic, and is some­body who is most­ly led by rea­son and less by emo­tion. She heard my sto­ry and with char­ac­ter­is­tic com­po­sure said, ‘This is not usu­al. Your heart is say­ing some­thing. Lis­ten.’

This is not what I was pre­pared to hear. I had ex­pect­ed her to say, ‘Come on, just don’t both­er. This too shall pass’, or some­thing on those lines.

Did I hear her right?

She said again in a re­as­sur­ing voice, ‘Just lis­ten to your heart.’

‘But ma’am, where do I go for a pot sound? Are you sug­gest­ing that I learn the gha­ta, now? Just be­cause I have had a bizarre dream?’ I protest­ed.

Calm­ly, she said, ‘Yes, that’s what I am say­ing. Go, find a (gha­ta in­stru­ment) gu­ru.’”

End of ex­cerpt from Song of the Clay Pot: My Jour­ney With the Ghatam by Sumana Chan­drashekar. Pub­lished by Speak­ing Tiger Books 2025.

Chan­drashekar lives in Ben­galu­ru, where she con­tin­ues to per­form, teach and re­search the his­to­ries of mu­sic, craft and com­mu­ni­ty.

Ira Math­ur is a free­lance jour­nal­ist, a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the 2023 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion.

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